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Dr. SPRAGUES SERMON 



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LATE NATIONAL FAST 



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SERMON, 



DELIVERED AT ALBANY, MAY 14, 1841, 



THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, 



OOCA9IONED BT THE DEATH OF THE LATE 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 






By WILLIAM B. ^PRAGUE, D. D. 

PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 




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ALBANY: V> >( 



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PRINTED BY C. VAN BENTHUY8E**- ^ /}f i »,,,,,, . 

::::::: 
1841. 







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To the Rev. W. B. Sprague, D. D. 
Dear Sir — 

The Trustees, as well in conformity with their own 
wishes, as the wishes of others of your congregation, respectfully 
request for publication a copy of the Sermon delivered by you on the 
morning of the 14th inst., the day recommended by the President of 
the United States for a National Fast. 

We are very respectfully, 

Your obed't serv'ts, 

Joseph Alexander, 
A. M'Intyre, 
Erastus Corning, 
Thomas W. Olcott, 
E. P. Prentice, 
Jno. I. Boyd, 
John Townsend, 
A. Marvin. 
Albany, May 15, 1841. 

To the Board of Trustees of the Second Presbyterian Congregation 
in Albany : 

Gentlemen — 

It has not been my custom to apologize for my own 
productions : on the contrary I have suffered even the most hasty of 
them to go to the publick for what they were worth ; considering it a 
good general rule, that if a sermon is too poor to print without an 
apology, it is too poor to print at all. In consenting, however, to the 
publication of this discourse, as I am aware that it very imperfectly 
meets the expectation which the occasion might reasonably justify, it 
is due to myself to state that it was necessarily prepared in a few 
hours, when I had but partially recovered from the fatigue of a jour- 
ney ; to say nothing of the fact of which you are already apprized, 
that I had previously delivered two other discourses on the same 
subject, in the same place, and to some extent to the same congrega- 
tion ; so that for this there remained little else than the gathering up 
of the fragments. But for the mysterious disappearance from my 
study of the MSS. of the two former, one of them, would have been 
given to the publick instead of this, which is now somewhat hesita- 
tingly yielded to your wishes. 
I beg you will accept, Gentlemen, the assurance of my highest regard. 

W. B. SPRAGUE. 
May 25, 1841. 



SERMON 



MICAH VI. 9. 

Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. 

The occasion which has brought us into the house 
of God this morning, marks an era in the history 
of this nation. Not that this is the first time that 
the nation has been called to keep a day of humi- 
liation and prayer ; but the first time that it has 
been called to keep such a day for such a cause. 
Not that this is the first instance in which death 
has removed an individual whom we had elevated 
to the chair of supreme authority ; but the first in 
which such an event has occurred at the commence- 
ment, or even in the course, of the Presidential 
career. I am sure you will agree with me that 
every sentiment of religion, every dictate of pro- 
priety, justifies this appointment. I count it an 
omen for good that our present Chief Magistrate, 
as one of the first of his official acts, has called upon 
his people to humble themselves beneath the rod 



of God. Whatever his future communications to 
the nation may be, he has already given us one 
that will stand the test of time ; for it breathes the 
spirit of reverence for the Divine authority, of con- 
fidence in the Divine government. Whatever mea- 
sures may characterize his course hereafter, he has 
adopted one in the beginning which may always 
be appealed to as worthy of imitation, so long as 
this nation exists. God grant that this disposition 
to acknowledge Him, and to call upon the country 
to acknowledge Him, may prove the harbinger of 
a happy administration — an administration through 
which blessings incalculable in their number and 
extent shall be conveyed not only to this nation 
but to the world. 

If I were to meet one of you with your heart 
bleeding at the death-bed of a beloved friend, I 
know not what more appropriate counsel I could 
address to you, than " Hear ye the rod, and who 
hath appointed it." Or if death had made a 
fearful inroad upon our congregation, removing 
some one who had shared in an unusual degree 
our affection and confidence, and in respect to 
whom, after he was gone, we should say that an 
armour-bearer had failed us — here again, I know 
not what better I could say to you, than "Hear ye 



the rod, and who hath appointed it." And now 
that my country hath been smitten of God, and is 
bleeding under His righteous hand, what better can 
I say to her — what better can I say to you, my 
friends, who are assembled here this morning as 
part of this nation, than "Hear ye the rod, and 
who hath appointed it." The rod speaks: listen 
to the warning voice. Consider the hand that 
wields it : it is the hand of the Ruler of nations. 

We shall fall in, I trust, with the design of the 
occasion, if we consider this national bereavement 
as having a bearing both upon the past and the 
future ; as administering rebuke on the one hand, 
and conveying instruction and expostulation on the 
other. In the prosecution of this object, 

I. I remark, in the first place, that this dispensa- 
tion rebukes our national ingratitude, and calls upon 
us to form a higher estimate of our obligations to 
the Divine goodness. 

I do not say that, as a nation, we have been in- 
sensible of our superior privileges ; or that we have 
been backward on certain occasions and in certain 
ways, to speak of them; but I appeal to you, whe- 
ther it has not been chiefly in a manner that has 
discovered more of a boasting than of a grateful 
spirit. When we have congratulated ourselves on 



8 

the freedom and the supposed stability of our insti- 
tutions, has not the secret feeling of our heart been, 
rather a feeling of complacency in consideration of 
our possessing these privileges, than a feeling of 
gratitude towards the bestower of them? And 
even when we have professed to recognize them 
as the fruit of the Divine goodness ; when we have 
said with our lips that it is God who hath made us 
to differ from other nations, and that He hath 
not dealt so with any nation as with us; nay, 
when we have been assembled professedly to re- 
count the tokens of His favour, and offer to Him 
the sacrifice of thanksgiving; has not our recogni- 
tion of His goodness been, to a great extent, a mere 
matter of form ; — have we not been too much like 
those of old who sang His praise, and then forgat 
His works? Yes, Brethren, as a nation, we are 
deeply chargeable with the sin of ingratitude j and 
I repeat — this dispensation administers a rebuke 
for it. 

For suppose you had lost an earthly friend — say 
a parent — whose watchful kindness had been the 
channel through which, from the first hour of your 
existence, there had been conveyed to you an un- 
interrupted stream of blessings ; and you had been 
accustomed always to receive these blessings merely 



as a matter of course, without lifting your eye to 
that Almighty Father who gave you your earthly 
parent and constituted the endearing relation that 
he sustained to you; I ask whether his removal 
from the world would not come as a rebuke to your 
ingratitude; — whether it would not set you to 
thinking of blessings innumerable which had been 
forgotten in unthankfulness ; and not merely of 
those which had come to you through the medium 
of parental kindness, but of others which may have 
come more directly from the hand of your Heavenly 
Father ? And why should not the same principle 
operate in respect to the nation bereaved of its 
Head ? The President of this nation sustains to it, 
in an important sense, the relation of a father. 
The President who has lately died, though not the 
choice of the whole nation, was the choice of the 
majority; and I may safely say in view of the 
mourning which his death has brought over the 
land, had the respect and good will of the country 
at large. I suppose that none of us doubt that he 
was a man of integrity and wisdom; and there is 
much reason to believe that, if he had lived, he 
would have ruled the nation in the fear of God. 
Of course, the loss of such a man from such a place, 
irrespective of all party considerations, is to be 

2 



10 

regarded as a publick calamity. We must suppose 
that a great blessing — certainly that which the 
majority of the nation accounted so — has been 
withdrawn from us in his death ; and why should 
not this remind us of other blessings which we 
have enjoyed and still enjoy, and rouse us from a 
habit of thankless indifference in respect to them ? 
We have had other men distinguished for their 
patriotism and talents and usefulness to rule over 
us ; and instead of being cut off at the commence- 
ment of their career, they have lived to complete 
the term of service which their country had allotted 
to them. We have seen our nation going forward 
in a course of unexampled prosperity; enlarging 
the bounds of her habitation on the right hand and 
on the left; and when clouds have lowered in our 
horizon, they have soon disappeared ; or if a tem- 
pest has passed over the land, it has lasted but for an 
hour, and has left a purer atmosphere and a brighter 
sky. You who have travelled in other countries, 
especially on the continent of Europe, know better 
than others how to value the liberal spirit that cha- 
racterizes our institutions. You may have seen 
much abroad to gratify your curiosity and excite 
your astonishment ; but you come back after all, re- 
joicing that your home is on this side of the ocean. 



11 

You welcome the sight of your own vine and fig tree, 
beneath which you can sit without any to molest 
or make you afraid. Now I say, the effect of this 
national bereavement should be to remind us of 
these forgotten and neglected mercies ; to lead us 
to recount them, not with a view to minister to 
our self-complacency, but to quicken our impulses 
of gratitude for the Divine bounty. It will be a 
beautiful offering to the memory of your departed 
President, to make his death the occasion of a 
grateful recollection of your distinguished blessings. 

II. This dispensation rebukes our national self- 
confidence, and charges us to cease from man and 
put our trust in the Lord. 

I honour and venerate my country ; but I am 
sure I do not charge her unjustly, when I say that 
she has been most criminally given to leaning upon 
an arm of flesh. She has gloried in the wisdom of 
man, as if man had no occasion to take counsel of 
any wisdom above his own. She has seen ruin 
waiting on one set of measures, and safety and glo- 
ry on another, without remembering that no mea- 
sures can render her interests secure, unless they 
are attended with God's blessing ; that her desti- 
nies are in the hands of him who putteth down 
one and setteth up another. In all this she has 



12 

dishonoured the Ruler of nations. She has acted 
as if she would take the sceptre of supreme author- 
ity into her own hands. She has practically bid 
the Most High stand aside, and without dreaming 
of the vanity or the madness of her pretensions, has 
attempted, in the spirit of the ancient builders 
of Babel, to make to herself a name whose glory 
should fill the earth. 

But it is not easy to conceive how a more effec- 
tual rebuke could have been given to this spirit, 
than has been in the death of our Chief Magistrate. 
In his administration were bound up the hopes of 
a majority of the nation. His election had been 
the result of a struggle, which had well nigh con- 
vulsed the country ; and those who had placed him 
in that lofty station, thought they saw in the mea- 
sures to which he was pledged, all they could ask 
to ensure the country's prosperity. But come, ye 
self-confident politicians, to your President's grave, 
and tell us what ye think now of the wisdom of 
trusting to an arm of flesh. Nerveless as a clod 
is the hand which but the other day received the 
staff of office. The eye that looked out upon that 
brilliant and imposing pageant, sees not : the ear 
upon which fell the deafening plaudits of the mul- 
titude, hears not : the voice that uttered itself with 



13 

freedom and energy from the highest place in the 
nation, speaks not : the senses are all locked up in 
the slumber of the sepulchre. And death hath re- 
moved to another sphere, though by no means 
blotted out of being, that well-balanced and well- 
directed mind, in which were already treasured up 
thoughts and plans for the development and execu- 
tion of which you were anxiously waiting. That 
beautiful fabrick which your imagination had fram- 
ed, and to which your heart was so strongly at- 
tracted, God has only touched; and lo, it has 
passed away, like the morning vapour before the 
sun! Transfer your confidence, then, from the 
creature to the Creator. Remember that if our 
national interests are safe, they are so only because 
God's protecting hand is upon them. Remember 
that if we in our folly refuse to put our trust in 
Him, we have no right to expect, either from His 
word or His providence, but that He in judgment 
will withhold His blessing from us. If we confide 
in Him unreservedly and implicitly, we may be 
sure of His favour; and with that we need not fear, 
though enemies should encircle us, and convulsions 
should agitate us, and our very mountains should 
be carried into the midst of the sea. 



14 

III. This dispensation of providence rebukes our 
national idolatry of our rulers, and teaches us to re- 
member that they are but men. 

Far be it from me to intimate that we have had 
too much of that sober and rational regard for those 
in authority, to which their station justly entitles 
them: what I would here reprobate is that idola- 
trous homage, that fanatical praise, which they are 
perpetually receiving from that part of the nation 
that approves and sustains their measures. I refer 
not to any particular administration as distinguish- 
ed in this respect above others ; but if I mistake not, 
you will find in looking through our whole nation- 
al history, that just in proportion to the prevalence 
of party spirit, this evil of which I am now speak- 
ing has prevailed : the majority of the people have 
spoken, and written, and acted, concerning our ru- 
lers, as if every thing they did was right, merely 
because they did it. Now it is to be borne in 
mind that rulers are constituted with the same 
flesh and blood, the same susceptibilities and infir- 
mities, with other men; and if other men cannot 
safely be subjected to such an influence, neither 
can they. Admitting that they are good men, and 
disposed to rule with an equal hand ; admitting too 
that they are discerning men, and more capable 



15 

than most of discriminating between truth and 
falsehood; yet, after all, if their ears are continu- 
ally trained to the sound of their own praise, it is 
hardly possible but that their hearts will beat too 
vigorously to the idea of their own merit; and as 
a consequence, that they will commit mistakes 
and errors which they would otherwise have avoid- 
ed. Many a ruler, I doubt not, has adopted mea- 
sures adverse to the publick good, which he never 
would have adopted, had he not been kept in coun- 
tenance by the unceasing flatteries of a party. The 
nation that deals thus with its rulers, need not won- 
der if it should first ruin them, and then render 
them instrumental of bringing ruin upon itself. 

You see how this dangerous and deceiving spirit 
is rebuked by this providence. Rulers are not 
only, like others, accountable for their conduct at 
the bar of Heaven, but their responsibility is in- 
creased in proportion to the amount of authority 
Which is committed to them. When they die, 
they enter upon their retribution, receiving good 
or evil in another world, according to the amount 
of good or evil which they have done in this. Say, 
then, whether the grave of our departed President 
does not charge us to beware how we throw stumb- 
ling blocks in their way ? It lifts up the voice of 



16 

intercession in their behalf, and pleads with us to 
remember that they have temptations enough to 
encounter, without being subjected to the ordeal 
of national flattery. It admonishes us that such a 
course, more than almost any other, puts in jeo- 
pardy the best interests of our country. And final- 
ly, it proposes to us the solemn interrogation, how 
we can meet our rulers in the judgment, if by our 
inordinate and unceasing flatteries, we have contri- 
buted to nourish their pride, to benumb their moral 
sensibility, and thus to accumulate for them the ma- 
terials of an aggravated condemnation. But on 
the other hand, 

IV. This providence rebukes no less effectually 
our growing contempt of authority, and calls upon 
us to render honour to whom honour is due. I am 
not sure but that I may have introduced this 
thought in the discourse which you heard on the 
Sabbath morning after the President's death ; but 
if I did, it is too important, and too apposite to 
the present occasion, not to be introduced here, 
even though it be at the expense of repetition. 

It is the fashion in this country for the party not 
in power to be exceedingly restless, and to oppose 
the administration under which they live, with at 
least an equal degree of zeal with that with which 



17 

its advocates sustain it. It is the fashion to level 
against rulers the arrows of detraction; to watch 
for every occasion for calling in question either their 
integrity or their ability, and to find occasion often 
where there is none ; to impute selfish and abomi- 
nable motives, where nothing can be said against 
the external act ; and sometimes even to talk loud- 
ly of revolt and rebellion. And I must add, it has 
become the fashion in many parts of our land, to 
trample upon the laws with mob-like violence ; the 
consequence of which is, that sometimes an inno- 
cent man is maimed, or mangled, or torn to pieces, 
where the laws ought to have protected him ; and 
in other cases the criminal is prematurely and un- 
justly punished, because the operation of the laws 
is too tardy for the taste of the people. If I mis- 
take not, this desperate spirit constitutes one of 
the worst features of our times. In every instance 
in which it is manifested, there is not only an out- 
rage committed against the laws of God, but an 
act of rebellion against the laws of the country, 
and an act of insult against the rulers of the coun- 
try. 

Here again, listen, and you shall hear your 
President's grave still speaking forth the language 
of rebuke and exhortation. He had indeed but 

3 



18 

just entered upon his office • but he had held it long 
enough to know that it was any thing else than a 
bed of roses ; and some have imagined that he ac- 
tually fell a victim to the fatigue and anxiety by 
which his introduction to it was attended. His 
language to the nation now is, " Your rulers have 
care and responsibility enough to overwhelm them, 
apart from all those burdens which ye have been 
accustomed needlessly and voluntarily to impose. 
Let the clamours of party then be hushed. Let 
the voice of crimination and insult be heard no 
more. Remember that your President is a man, 
that your rulers are all men, and that you have as 
little reason to expect perfection in them as they 
have in you. Be lenient, then, towards their in- 
firmities, and be not too strict to mark even their 
errours against them. Remember that they are 
God's ministers for good, and as such claim your 
homage and obedience. And if you will see their 
administration most fruitful in blessings, study to 
alleviate rather than increase their burdens ; submit 
cheerfully to the laws which it is their duty to 
enforce, and co-operate with them to suppress the 
spirit of insubordination, and thus promote the best 
interests of our common country. Render unto 
Cassar the things that are Caesar's. It is due to 



19 

humanity ; it is due to justice ; it is due to honour ; 
it is due to patriotism." 

V. This affecting providence rebukes our nation- 
al inconsideration of death, and calls upon us to 
awake to a sense of our mortality. 

Look through any circle you please, no matter 
how limited, no matter how extensive, and you 
find a general inattention to the concerns of eterni- 
ty. You may travel through the length of the 
land, and then through the breadth of it, and it is 
only here and there one that you will meet, who 
is not living as if this world were his final home. 
The merchant is busy in accumulating wealth, and 
in proportion to his success, is ever grasping for 
more ; but he forgets that he must die and leave it. 
The politician is eager to make his voice heard 
through the nation ; but he forgets that his voice 
must soon be hushed in death. The aspiring states- 
man has his eye upon some lofty place of honour, 
and labours day and night to lift himself into it ; but 
he forgets that there is a pathway ever kept open 
even from the throne to the sepulchre. The crea- 
ture of habitual thoughtlessness is buzzing about in 
pursuit of pleasure, like a butterfly in the sun ; but 
it never occurs to him that death may put an end 
to all his pleasures to-morrow. Yes, the great 



20 

mass of the nation are utterly absorbed in this 
world ; and neither their vision nor their aspirations 
extend to a coming one. 

True there are rebukes to this spirit of inconsi- 
deration, every day, and on every side : — every 
death-bed scene, every funeral procession, every 
open grave, rebukes it. But in ordinary cases the 
providence of God speaks to a comparatively small 
circle: here it speaks to every individual in the nation; 
for if the death of the father of a family be an admo- 
nition to that family to prepare to die, not less is the 
death of the Head of a nation an admonition to 
that entire nation to consider their latter end. But 
a little while since, my countrymen, your President 
spoke to you as a living man, and he told you con- 
cerning the projected measures of his administra- 
tion : to day he speaks to you from the silence and 
corruption of the tomb, and I trust I may add, in 
view of all the cheering evidence of his Christian 
character which has come to us, — from that world 
where the dignity of earthly distinction is forgot- 
ten amidst the splendours of a blood-bought crown ; 
but he speaks on another and more momentous sub- 
ject — your relations to God and eternity. If you 
were disposed to heed the voice of the living, turn 
not a deaf ear to the voice of the dead. Men of 



21 

every class and every character throughout this 
nation, not God's ministers, but the grave, is preach- 
ing to you to-day ; and the doctrine is everywhere 
the same — that you must all die ; and the exhorta- 
tion is everywhere the same' — 'that you should pre- 
pare to die. 

Hitherto I have dwelt upon those national sins 
which are more directly and especially rebuked by 
this affecting dispensation ; but I must now add in 
the 

VI. Last place, that God has here sent us a re- 
buke for all our national transgressions, and is 
calling us to repentance and reformation in view 
of them. 

Nothing is so well adapted to set an individual 
to reflecting upon his sins, as the chastisements of 
the Divine hand. Thus, you remember, when 
Jacob's sons were brought into circumstances of 
difficulty and peril in Egypt, they began immediate- 
ly to commune with themselves and with one ano- 
ther, in respect to their cruel and murderous treat- 
ment of their brother; and the reason was that 
conscience did its office, and recognized the doc- 
trine of a retribution. And the same principle ap- 
plies to communities as to individuals. When the 
rod of God is laid upon a nation as it has been now 



22 

upon us, it is adapted to excite the inquiry, where- 
fore is it that He has thus come out in judgment ? 
What are the sins of which we have been guilty, 
that we are thus subjected to the chastisements of 
Heaven ? I can only hint at those which have not 
been already mentioned. 

Let me say, then, that we are chargeable with 
having shut our ears against the voice of God, 
when he has spoken to us in former judgments. 
It is but a few years since the pestilence passed 
through this land, like fire through a forest. We 
had heard of it indeed as the scourge of other 
lands; but we had looked at the ocean as an 
effectual barrier against its approach to us. Pre- 
sently, however, that barrier was passed ; and we 
read in our own newspapers, under the head of 
domestick intelligence, as fearful tales of desolation 
as any which had come to us from across the ocean. 
It was not here and there only, but every where; 
and the graves were multiplying every day by 
thousands and thousands; and even the most 
thoughtless were compelled to feel that they lived 
on the threshold of eternity. But at length the 
pestilence passed off, and our anxiety passed off 
with it ; and there is reason to believe that instead 
of melting the nation into penitence, it rendered it 



23 

more obdurate in transgression. At a more recent 
period, the country has been subjected to unprece- 
dented commercial distress. Rich men have seen 
their fortunes vanishing like chaff before the whirl- 
wind ; and poverty and bankruptcy and ruin have 
become as household words, where for years noth- 
ing but affluence and independence had been 
dreamed of. But the nation has remained un- 
humbled still. We have been loud enough and 
busy enough in referring the evil to second causes ; 
but where have been the evidences of our recogni- 
tion of the Divine hand ; — of our repentance 
and reformation in view of the Divine rebuke? 
And finally, the elements have been commission- 
ed as ministers of God's displeasure toward us. 
The conflagration has swept over no inconsid- 
erable portion of the metropolis of the land, blot- 
ting out the productions of art, frustrating the 
labours of industry, and arresting temporarily the 
current of expectation and enterprise. Our vessels 
have been abroad upon our waters, freighted with 
youth and beauty, with intelligence and virtue ; but 
the midnight tempest has opened for these multi- 
tudes a common grave in the deep ; or the terrific 
explosion has announced their entrance into eter- 
nity; or else the flames around and the waters 



24 

beneath have contended in the work of death, till 
there have been only enough left to record the hor- 
rours of the scene. These events occurring in 
fearfully rapid succession, have for the time, spread 
consternation and agony through the land ; and it 
has seemed as if God's warning voice were raised 
to a note so loud and terrible, that the most 
thoughtless must be forced to consideration; but 
here again, scarcely have the tidings died away 
upon our ears, before we have regained our accus- 
tomed insensibility, and virtually said to God that 
if he would melt or humble us, it must be done 
by some yet more appalling visitation. 

Infidelity is another crying sin with which we 
are chargeable — yes, infidelity in every form and 
degree; from the dark insinuation against Chris- 
tianity that is only whispered in a corner, down to 
the open rejection of all religion, and the blasphe- 
mies of the blackest atheism. The state of the 
country in reference to this subject at this moment 
would, I doubt not, if it could be laid open to us, 
furnish matter of most appalling interest to every 
one who regards his country's welfare. We should 
see that there is no place so high, but that infideli- 
ty has been able to reach it ; no place so low but 
that she has been willing to creep into it ; and I 



25 

fear, no place so sacred, but that she is suffered to 
profane and pollute it. From every part of this 
land, and especially from our great cities, there is 
a voice going up to Heaven, calling for still heavier 
judgments to descend upon us, because we are so 
rapidly becoming an infidel people. 

And there is the sin of slavery — yes, silent as we 
may be in respect to it, because fanaticism on the 
one hand, and prejudice and selfishness on the other, 
are lifting up together their discordant voices to 
seal our lips and palsy our efforts — the sin of sla- 
very is, at this moment, bearing testimony against 
us before the Ruler of nations, as loudly as any 
other. True, indeed, the fact that this mighty 
burden of guilt rests upon us is no reason why we 
should act precipitately, and thus defeat our own 
efforts in endeavouring to throw it off; but it is a 
reason why we should not remain inactive ; and if 
we are contented to remain so, what else will other 
nations say of us, what else will our own con- 
sciences say of us, what else will God the righteous 
Judge write in His book concerning us, but that 
with all our eulogies of freedom, and all our pre- 
tended abhorrence of slavery, we are, after all, 
willing that this sin should lie at our door? 



26 

The spirit of violence and bloodshed too is abroad 
in the land, and in some parts of it to a degree, to 
which you will scarcely find a parallel even in the 
most barbarous country. The good and useful 
citizen is decoyed away from his habitation to be 
murdered at noon-day ; and the murderer with a 
view to escape detection, turns his own dwelling 
into a sepulchre. The magistrate, while engaged 
in the discharge of his appropriate functions, falls 
dead from his seat, a victim to ruthless violence. 
The neighbourhood echoes at midnight to the alarm 
of fire ; but it turns out that amidst those flames 
there is blood ; and the fire has been kindled only 
to hide the assassin's hand. And in some instances 
the perpetrators of these deeds are suffered to go at 
large, while justice stands like a statue at her post, 
as if her eyes were put out, or her hands were 
palsied, or her life blood were frozen. My country, 
thou hast a fearful account to settle for these bloody 
outrages; especially for such as are voluntarily, 
deliberately, left unpunished ! 

I had intended to add to this list of our national 
sins, the extensive desecration of the Sabbath ; the 
neglect of the ordinances of religion ; the profana- 
tion of God's holy name, as well as the sin of 
intemperance, which is still in no small degree 



27 



prevalent, notwithstanding all that Christian bene- 
volence and Christian enterprise have done to arrest 
it; but instead of pursuing this train of thought, I 
will only in conclusion urge you in a single word, 
to fulfil the great purpose for which the solemnities 
of this day have been ordained — that of repentance 
and reformation. The repentance of the nation 
must be that of the individuals of which the nation 
is composed ; and as you are among its component 
parts, I call upon you this day, every one, to break 
off your iniquities by turning to the Lord, as a debt 
which you owe to your country. Repent of your 
own personal transgressions — of the sins of your 
heart and of your life, and supplicate grace to 
enable you to live a righteous, sober and godly 
life, to the glory of God's holy name. Humble 
yourselves in view of our national sins, and resolve 
that the full amount of your influence shall be con- 
secrated to the cause of national reformation. And 
then go forth and act in the spirit of this day's 
solemnities, in the spirit of the resolutions you 
have here formed, and it will be good for you, it 
will be good for our common country, that you 
have engaged in this exercise. 

It is at once a sublime and affecting thought 
that this great nation is professedly humbling itself 



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28 

to-day around the tomb of its departed Head. If 
I had a voice that could be heard from one end of 
the land to the other, I would say, My country- 
men, take heed that ye do not hereafter prove this 
day's solemnities to have been a farce. Ye are 
professing now to be humble for your sins, and to 
ask that God's judgments may not be lost upon 
you : show your sincerity then by forsaking the 
sins for which you mourn ; by laying duly to heart 
the chastisement which you profess to recognize. 
But if you rise from your knees only to commit the 
sins which you have confessed; if you go forth 
from your chambers of fasting to open your bosoms 
to the influence of party strife, and criminal world- 
liness, and forgetfulness of God, then remember 
that you have played the hypocrite amidst the 
solemnities of an occasion which has had it not 
more of a fast than of a funeral; and to say 
nothing of other testimony, the grave of your 
lamented President will be a witness against you 
until it shall give up its dead at the great resurrec- 
tion day. 



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